The Enemy Within
by Nightcore Prime
Summary: After defeating Orphan, Lightning is inside of her crystalized prison. What will happen when her only way out is to defeat the one person she never thought she would have to face, herself?


**This all takes place while Lightning is in her crystalized prison after defeating orphan.**

Lightning opens her eyes to find herself in a dark space. There were no walls, no windows, just an empty void.

"What the hell?" She said to herself in a state of complete confusion.

Suddenly, she hears footsteps, soft footsteps. She looks around frantically trying to find the source of the sound.

More time goes by and the sound slowly grows louder. Lightning draws her weapon to prepare to attack at the sight of the person or thing approaching her. That's when the footsteps stop. Lightning holds onto her blade tightly, trying to stay calm. She was ready to pounce at the sound of another being around her. That's when she heard a voice.

"Light?" the voice said softly.

Hearing this Lightning sprang into action, she found the person, pinned it to the ground and put her blade against the person's neck, ready to kill, not realizing who she was attacking.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Light, it's me, Hope!" Hope said frantically.

Lightning was shocked to realize it was Hope she had attacked, and quickly got off of him.

"Hope?! How did you get in here? Wait, where are we?" Lightning inquired rapidly.

"I don't know, all I saw was a light, and I walked toward it and found you," Hope replied, confused.

"Great, we have no idea where we are, or how to get out, isn't this just great," Lightning said, sighing heavily.

"Maybe not, look" Hope said pointing towards a light in the distance. It was a small light, but it was a very intense light.

"You think that's a way out?" Lightning asked.

"Only one way to find out," Hope said as he began running towards the light, at a surprisingly fast pace. Lightning quickly began her pursuit towards the light, still shocked about how fast Hope is and how much faster he is than her.

"Hope, slow down!" Lightning exclaimed, trying to get the adolescent to listen to her.

"It's okay, I think I see a way out, we'll be out soon!" Hope said as he kept running.

After a few more meters, a small cave entrance appeared in the distance.

"Hope, wait!" Lightning called out, but it was too late, Hope had already entered the cave. He was out of Lightning's sight.

When Lightning reached the cave's entrance, she stopped briefly to check it out before entering.

"Hope!" She yelled into the cave hoping for an answer.

"Lightning, come on, there's a way out I see it right over- aaaaaaagh!" Hope yelled out in pain.

"Hope? Hope?!" Lightning yelled out. Hearing no answer, she ran into the cave.

She called out his name several times as she went deeper into the cave, but heard no reply, every time she yelled out his name, she ran a bit faster, making her pay less attention to where she was going. Lightning soon enough slipped and fell right onto her back, and her hand landed in a warm substance which she recognized instantly, blood. That's when she heard another large scream from Hope, making her snap out of her trance and get back onto her feet.

"Hope, give me a sign, I need to find you!" Lightning yelled out on the top of her lungs.

To her surprise, at that moment, the cave began to shake violently. One of the walls to her left began to crack open, showing a small amount of light on the other side. Soon, the wall shattered revealing a large open field, similar to that of a football stadium. In the center of the field was Hope, on his knees. He looked as though someone had beaten him up badly.

"Hope!" Lightning exclaimed, running towards him as fast as she could.

"No, Lightning, run! That thing is still here!" Hope warned Lightning.

"What thing?" Lightning asked as she finally reached and then kneeled in front of Hope.

"Me," a sinister voice said.

Lightning as fast as she could, took out her blade and cut towards the voice to find nothing there, but when she turned back to Hope, he was being held by the collar of his clothes from behind by someone who looks identical to Lightning, only her eyes were pitch black.

"Put him down!" Lightning ordered her apparent doppelganger.

"Hm, no, I know how much you like him, so I'm just gonna put him away for now," Dark Lightning said, snapping her fingers, making Hope disappear instantly.

"No!" Lightning yelled, running at her clone, ready to attack.

"Ah, ah, ahh" Dark Lightning said as she began to levitate. It was then Lightning saw that the ground was caving in below her. Lightning tries to run away, but to no avail, as she is easily brought down.

After a long fall, Lightning landed in a warehouse, where there was a mess of equipment, garbage, parcels, anything and everything.

"Give Hope back!" Lightning yelled furiously.

"Oh, don't worry, you'll see him soon enough," Her own voice replied giggling.

"Who are you?" Lightning asked, drawing her sword and looking around the warehouse.

"That should be fairly obvious by now," the voice said in return.

Lightning began walking backwards, looking around frantically.

"I'm you," the voice said appearing right behind Lightning.

Lightning swung her sword at her dark clone, only for the blade to be met by another of the exact same kind. Lightning still shocked by this, was caught off guard, and got sucker punched by Dark Lightning, sending her to the ground. Lightning slowly got up, trying to regain her ground, while listening to her evil opposite speak.

"I know everything about you Lightning Farron, or should I say, Claire? I know, who you are, who you love, who you've hurt, and what it'll take for me to break you. Do you know how easy it was for me to take Hope, how easy it would be for me to take Serah, Sazh, Fang, Snow, Vanille and everyone you love from you, while you can only sit there and watch?" Dark Lightning laughed, as she reappeared and punched Lightning in the face, on her right, putting her back onto her knees. When she tried to get up her antithesis, kicked her in the stomach while she was on all fours, struggling to stay up.

"Why, why are you doing this?" Lightning asked coughing up blood.

"I guess you can call this a test, you defeat me, you get out of this hell, but you are not faring well from where I stand," Dark Lightning said as she knelt down before Lightning and picked her up by her hair, and looked her directly in her eyes.

"You know, you for the longest time, must've thought that Barthandelus, Jihl or even Orphan, were your greatest enemies, but that's not true and you know it. It's me Claire, it's always been me," Lightning's antithesis dropped her head, and vanished off into the darkness, only to begin ranting once again.

"How does it feel knowing, that the one person you cannot defeat is yourself? Knowing that anyone that comes close to you ends up miserable, or dead, don't try to deny it Claire, there is plenty of blood on your hands," she continuously taunted Lightning, breaking her down from the inside.

"No, I've only killed when I had to, when I had no choice, you don't know me!" Lightning retaliated with everything she had.

"I am you!" Dark Lightning yelled back, this sent a shock through Lightning's body, making her fall onto her back.

"You don't kill because you have to, you do it, for the worst reason ever," Dark Lightning said with a disgusted tone.

"Because you like it!" Dark Lightning yelled, as she flew down from the top of the warehouse and landed on Lightning, and punched her in the face once again, harder than any of the other times.

"Maybe it's time to show you what I mean," Dark Lightning said getting up, and dragging Lightning along with her. Lightning's dark clone dragged her to a wall, and threw her up against it, hard enough to make her start coughing because of how she winded her, but still tried to get back up.

"Oh, no you don't," Dark Lightning said walking over to Lightning.

"You're going to stay put and watch," she said as she thrust he sword, right into the right side of her abdomen, impaling her and the wall behind her. Lightning cried out in pain, after being stabbed so hard, and started to struggle to try and get the sword out of her, but to no success.

"I think you need to see what you do to all those around you who care for you, and you care for them in return," Dark Lightning said.

At that moment, Hope emerged from the ground, looking more beaten then before. He had several impalement wounds all around his body, from his arms to his legs, he had a black eye, his nose had been broken and had a large cut over the top of his head. Seeing this, Lightning began to struggle more.

"You hurt him, I'll kill you!" Lightning yelled with a fire in her voice.

"You're in no position to make threats," Dark Lightning laughed as she walked around Hope in circles.

"It's okay Light, I'll be okay, just focus on getting out of there," Hope said looking up at Lightning.

"It's because of you that he is in this mess," Dark Lightning said as she made a copy of her sword that is impaled in Lightning and slowly walked towards Hope's back. Knowing what was going to happen, Lightning reached out for the blade that stabbed her, and began to try to push it out.

"Well, you've still got some fight in you, huh? How about this, I'll give you 'til the count of three, if you can get out of there before I get to three, I won't kill him, ready? One!" Dark Lightning said as she stopped directly behind Hope, making him bend forward in fear.

Lightning was doing everything she could, she was thrashing around, and hitting the sword, trying to get it out, but the sword won't budge.

"Two!" Dark Lightning said as she pulled her sword up, ready to kill.

Lightning was now moving frantically, causing her more pain than she could have imagined, but still, the sword won't move in the slightest.

"Disappointing, three!" Dark Lightning yelled as she impaled Hope, right through the center of his chest, causing his to cough up obscene amounts of blood.

"NOOO!" Lightning screamed as she finally broke free of the sword impaling her in the wall, she grabbed the sword that impaled her, ready to charge at her antithesis, but before she could take a step, she fell to the ground.

"Too bad, I was looking forward to a good fight, oh well, good bye Claire," Dark Lightning said raising her sword, ready to kill her too, when suddenly, a horse came running out of nowhere and took Dark Lightning down, hard. Suddenly, the warehouse they were in vanished and was replaced with the void Lightning began in.

Lightning looked up with blurry vision, but when she was able to focus, she saw Odin fighting off Dark Lightning. Odin was able to incapacitate Dark Lightning for a short while, which gave him time to run back to Lightning. Lightning felt a warm light, from behind her, as she slowly began to get up, feeling the wound in her abdomen begin to heal.

"Odin? How are y-?" Lightning inquired, but was stopped as a hand was put in her direction, signaling her to get up.

"Okay, then, beat her first, talk later," Lightning said, taking Odin's hand and getting up.

Odin, quickly transformed into his horse mode and gave Lightning his sword in the process, she then hoped onto his back, and they got into a fighting stance as they watched Dark Lightning. She looked like she had seen better days as her face had a large crack that went from her forehead to her jaw over her left eye.

"You brought a friend, good, so did I!" Dark Lightning yelled while laughing as her own version of Odin appeared.

"This is gonna be fun," Dark Lightning said as she began to charge towards Lightning on top of her own dark version of Odin. Lightning and Odin began running towards her too, with just as much aggression.

"Odin, we're going to switch things up, you ready?" Lightning asked, Odin grunted in response, showing he understood. Lightning was kicked off of Odin's back, Odin caught her and threw her directly towards Dark Lightning, who did not see this coming.

Dark Lightning tried to block the attack, but she was knocked off of her version of Odin and sent straight to the ground. Lightning dropped Odin's swords and took out her own and prepared to kill her evil counterpart.

"Do it, kill me, prove that you're the killer I know you are," Dark Lightning said with an evil grin.

"You're right, I am a killer, I will not hide that from myself anymore, but I'm going to do something else," Lightning said raising her sword and thrust it down into the center of her evil clone's chest. "I'm going to own it, it's who I am," Lightning said as she looked down at her antithesis begin to fade into the void.

Once she disappeared, cracks of light began to form in the void, soon enough the void shattered and next thing Lightning knew, she was back in Gran Pulse, looking up at a crystalized Cocoon.


End file.
